The Dollar and the Stare

March fifth. The vending machine in the break room took Simone's dollar on Tuesday and gave her absolutely nothing in return. Not a jam. Not an error message. Just silence and the faint hum of a machine that had already moved on. Simone stood in front of it for what I counted as approximately thirty seconds, arms at her sides, head tilted about three degrees, expression completely level. She was not angry. She was giving it time.

I did not help. I had my phone out before I'd made any conscious decision about it. The camera-as-looking-tool rule, applied to a coworker and a vending machine at eleven-fifteen on a Tuesday morning. I filed the photograph away and said nothing, which is the correct response when someone is in the middle of a principled standoff with an appliance.

We had twenty minutes left in the break and we spent most of it at the table talking about nothing in particular, the kind of conversation that doesn't have a subject so much as a temperature.

break room table, mid-something

Simone got her coffee from the actual coffee station, which was the sensible backup she'd had available the whole time. I pointed this out. She said she was aware. That was the end of it.

I was halfway out the door at the end of the shift when I realized I was going to say one more thing, which I did, and Simone's face told me she'd already finished the thought before I got there.

last word, always

That is roughly how most of our shifts end. The dollar is still in the machine, presumably. I have not checked.